I heard the unmistakable pop-up notification alert of Facebook Messenger. This was enough to pry me away briefly from the football I was watching on my TV. The initial excitement and over-riding thought of that notification was, at least back then, was the prospect of an attractive girl randomly popping up and messaging me. It wasn't something that happened daily, but as I was now one of the older guys at my school, it inevitably led to slightly more female attention.
Just a few months ago, a girl a bit younger than me, Scarlett, had randomly added me. I recognized her from around the corridors and with her short brown hair, she reminded me slightly of Frankie from The Saturdays. I'd taken the plunge and started messaging her, despite slight reservations that she might be into girls, I thought at worst I'd gain a casual acquaintance who I'd have at least one thing in common with. And maybe she could set me up with one of her friends.
We'd had a short fling which sparked after her best friend had told me Scarlett thought I was pretty hot. I pretended that I knew nothing about it and when she first mentioned the subject of boys in one of our chats, I thought it would be funny to act surprised and pretend I thought she was a lesbian. I'm not sure why I did this looking back many years later as it obviously wouldn't have done much for her self-esteem, but at the time I thought it was pretty funny and would be a good story if we got together. Alas, we didn't, despite meeting up a few times and it getting a bit spicy at times, it had filtered out because she had a lot going on in her personal life and in my immaturity and impatience I'd blown it.
So when that notification first sounded, my thoughts gravitated towards Scarlett. Had she had a change of heart and wanted to give it another go?
Not quite.
"You coming to Nat's thing tonight, mate?"
It was Mikey.
There was a lot of things you could say about Mikey back in those days, some bad, some good, but you could never question his relentless persistence in convincing his friends to go out and do stuff. Especially if the opportunity to get drunk had presented itself. This was indeed one of those occasions, although not one that particularly appealed to me.
Natalie Gonzalez was having some kind of gathering at her house. A year ago when we were still 17 this might have been a no-brainer, but we'd been 18 for months now. We'd swapped parks, beaches and house parties for the best clubs, pubs and bars that the East of England had to offer. Well, perhaps not, but we'd frequent the local student nights and Wetherspoons almost religiously each week. It was a huge step-up from the average night we'd have before, sure, once a month someone would have a decent house party, sometimes there would even be a proper mental one that was actually good, but for every night like that there was a night sitting around Mikey's or Seb's drinking cheap vodka and energy mix (a stalwart combination for British teens) until we threw up or passed out.
Natalie was a year older than us, but had failed her exams last year, so was re-doing her classes again with our year. She was a nice girl. I had nothing against her. But in the few conversations I'd had with her she'd never given the impression that she was a particularly exciting person. The girls she'd made friends with in my year, Maddie and Mary, although again, perfectly nice, were not what I'd call fun either. I don't profess to be a party animal or the most exciting guy you'll ever meet, but Maddie and Mary, although fine to talk to in class, were insufferable outside of it. I have nothing against people who don't drink, but they were the sort of people who would come on a night out or to one of our small gatherings, barely drink, then gossip in class to anyone who would listen about all the embarrassing stuff that was said or happened.
No. A night with those 3 and a bunch of people I wouldn't know and probably wouldn't like did not appeal. It hadn't appealed to anyone else either. Seb cited having work the next morning as an excuse to get out of it, which seemed a bit suspect considering he'd spent more of his supermarket shifts hungover than he had sober, but I didn't blame him in the slightest. Two of our other close friends, Tony and Nick, hadn't actually been invited having never spoken to Natalie, but unlike some of the house parties of yesteryear, this was not something you'd be begging your mates to get you a +1 for.
"Go on mate, don't be boring! I've got a few beers you can have."
This sounded like a generous offer, but if Carlsberg did Friday nights, chugging back warm leftover cans of Export in Natalie Gonzalez's front-room with Maddie and Mary would probably not be the best Friday night in the world.
"Nah I think I'm gonna give it a miss, sorry mate."
I'm not sure why Mikey was so keen to get out of his house that night, but in hindsight I suppose it's a bloody good thing that he was. It took him at least another five minutes of relentless nagging to finally convince me to meet him at her house a few hours later, but meet him I did.
~ ~ ~
We'd been at Natalie's about an hour and I guess after a few beers it wasn't so bad. We were hosted in a converted shed at the end of her garden, in fairness it was a damn-sight better than what you'd imagine. It was quite big, nicely furnished and easily fit 20-25 people in it. I'm not sure if there actually was 20-25 people there, maybe 20 at max, but it wasn't so bad. I'd spent much of the evening with Mikey, Mary and Maddie - there were a few other people there that I vaguely recognized from around school, but no one that I was particularly interested in talking to.
We were just beginning to quiz Mary about her fledging friendship with Seb, which we suspected might be leading to something a bit more than that, when the door to the shed was flung open.
"NATALIE?!?! NATALIE!!!!"
More or less everybody in the shed stopped what they were doing and looked to the door. Was her Mum putting a stop to the evening before it even began? It was only half 10. I'd had low expectations for the night, but getting kicked out that early would've been pretty abysmal, even by our standards.
Natalie got up and walked towards the door, with a confused look on her face, which quickly turned to one of utter delight when she saw who was at the door.
"Stacy! Gemma! I thought you weren't coming!"
I'd never seen either of the two new arrivals before in my life. Natalie rushed to hug and greet them. The first girl, Stacy, was quite short, with bright red-hair fashioned in a bob-cut. She was wearing a black Rolling Stones tank-top with quite tight jean shorts. The second girl, Gemma, was considerably taller, with darker hair which flowed down to her shoulders and rested on the fairly casual blue dress she was wearing, which complimented her long legs quite nicely.
Stacy took a big glass bottle out of a blue plastic bag she was carrying. It looked like vodka but I couldn't tell from the other side of the room.
"I knew you were hanging around with some of the kids in the year below you now Nat, but I didn't realize they were all so fucking boring! This is the party shed, is it not?! I thought i'd gone to the wrong house and this was some old man's shed. Come on guys, let's get this party going... IT'S TEQUILA TIME!!!"
Mikey looked at me. A huge grin had engulfed his face. Gemma retrieved some shot glasses and her and Stacy began walking around the shed giving out a shot to anyone who wanted one.
I'd had tequila once before. We'd been at Seb's house and his older sister and her boyfriend made us do some with the lime and the salt. I held the tequila down for all of 5 seconds before making a mad dash for the bathroom and having a chunder down the toilet that was anything but tactical. There was no way I was taking a shot from Stacy and Gemma when they got round to me. I'd look boring by saying no, but I'd look like an absolute dickhead if I instantly threw up from it. Not exactly a great first impression to two reasonably attractive girls - they both had to be at least a year or two older than me anyway, so I obviously had no real chance, but I still didn't want to embarrass myself in-front of them.
They worked their way through the room and got after a few minutes close to Maddie and Mary, who were sitting just a few feet away from us. I was thanking my lucky stars, as whilst Mikey would obviously take one, if both Maddie and Mary had rejected one just before me, that would take the heat off for sure. Stacey poured two shots into the plastic glasses that Gemma was holding up and presented them to Maddie and Mary - I smirked a little knowing what was coming next... but... they only went and fucking drunk them! Mikey cheered next to me as they necked it like it was water. Just a few weeks ago I'd witnessed Maddie take 3 sips to finish a shot of Apple Sourz, now she was knocking back Tequila like it was nothing!
I sipped my beer as they approached us. Stacy poured two more shots out and Mikey reached out to take his before she'd even taken it in his direction. He gulped it down in one, as both Stacy and Gemma sarcastically cheered.
Stacy turned to look at me with the remaining shot in her hands, with a wry smile on her face and a hint of evil in her dark brown eyes.
"Come on then, your turn. We haven't got all night!"
There was no way I was keeping that shot down if I drank it. My heart started beating a little faster at the thought of having to try and keep it down. The two girls looked more attractive close up, but in the moment it was only really Stacy that I was looking at.
